Paczki Day

We had a Parish Mardi Gras super on Tuesday ... Brother Howard (our Sacristan) makes pancakes, with sausage and bacon. I'm told it's a southern custom, linked to French custom, that has pancakes for Mardi Gras. As an added feature, I made paczki (poonch-key - think Polish donut). Last week I went out and got myself a small deep-fryer and two tubs of lard ... yes, lard ... to get ready. These little sweets are traditionally fried in lard, and who am I to argue with tradition? I used a recipe from my Grandmother ... it's in her handwriting on a page from an old steno-pad, so I keep it in a plastic sleeve to protect it. I made one batch on Monday to see how many I'd get out of a single recipe, and it made about five dozen. I sent two dozen over to Choir rehearsal that evening, and most of the rest got "sampled" here in the house, so that meant I needed to do more on Tuesday. Actually, I doubled the recipe, and got about 13 dozen ... plain, prune, apricot and raspberry filled. And they all went.